Ice and Fire Read Free Page A

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    ‘Well?’
    He was about to answer her when there was the sound of footsteps in the dining room. Their mother’s. Then a second set.
    Meg pushed past him and jumped down the four steps in her haste.
    ‘Daddy!’
    Hal Shepherd gathered his daughter up, hugging her tight and kissing her, delighted to see her. Then he ducked under the lintel and climbed the steps up into the kitchen, Beth following.
    ‘Gods, Ben, what have you been up to?’
    Ben turned to face the table.
    ‘It’s a dead rabbit. We found it down by the Seal. It’s diseased. But that’s not all. It doesn’t come from here. It was brought in.’
    Hal put Meg down and went across. ‘Are you sure, Ben?’ But he knew that Ben was rarely if ever wrong.
    Ben pulled back the cloth. ‘Look. I made certain of it against Amos’s book. This one isn’t real. It’s a genetic redesign. Probably GenSyn. One of the guards must have made a substitution.’
    Hal studied the carcass a while, then nodded. ‘You’re right. And it won’t be the only one, I’m sure. I wonder who brought it in?’
    Ben saw the anger mixed with sadness on his father’s face. There were two gates to the Domain, each manned by an elite squad of a dozen men, hand-picked by the T’ang himself. Over the years they had become friends of the family and had been granted privileges – one of which was limited entry to the Domain. Now that would have to stop. The culprit would have to be caught and made to pay.
    Meg came up to him and tugged at his arm. ‘But why would they do it? There’s no great difference, is there?’
    Hal smiled sadly. ‘It’s a kind of foolishness, my love, that’s all. There are people in the City who would pay a vast sum of money to be able to boast they had real rabbit at one of their dinners.’
    Ben stared at the carcass fixedly. ‘How much is a vast sum?’
    Hal looked down at his son. ‘Fifty, maybe a hundred thousand yuan for each live animal. They would breed them, you see, then sell the doctored litters.’
    Ben considered. Such a sum would be as nothing to his father, he knew, but to others it was a fortune. He saw at once how such an opportunity might have tempted one of the guards. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘But there’s another, more immediate worry. If they’re all like this they could infect everything in the Domain. We’ll need to sweep the whole area. Catch everything and test it. Quarantine whatever’s sick.’
    Hal nodded, realizing his son was right. ‘Damn it! Such stupidity! I’ll have the culprit’s hide!’ He laid a hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘But you’re right, Ben, we’d best do something straight away. This can’t wait for morning.’
    He turned to Beth, anger turning to apology in his face. ‘This complicates things, I’m afraid. I meant to tell you earlier, my love. We have a guest coming, tomorrow evening. An important guest. He’ll be with us a few days. I can’t say any more than that. I was hoping we could hunt, but this business buggers things.’
    She frowned at him and made a silent gesture towards Meg.
    Shepherd glanced at his daughter then looked back at his wife and gave a slight bow. ‘I’m sorry. My language. I forget when I’ve been away. But this…’ He huffed angrily, exasperated, then turned to his son again. ‘Come, Ben, there’s much to be done.’
    It was calm on the river. Ben pulled easily at the oars, the boat moving swiftly through the water. Meg sat facing him, looking across at the eastern shore. Behind her, in the stern, sat Peng Yu-wei, tall, elderly and very upright, his staff held in front of him like an unflagged mast. It was ebb tide and the current was in their favour. Ben kept the boat midstream, enjoying the warmth of the midday sun on his bare shoulders, the feel of the mild sea breeze in his hair. He felt drowsy, for one rare moment almost lapsed out of consciousness, then Meg’s cry brought him back to himself.
    ‘Look!’
    Meg was pointing out towards the far